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LOS ANGELES -- An openly gay police sergeant who said he was subjected to derogatory remarks by his supervisor was awarded $1.1 million by a jury Thursday.

Sgt. Ronald Crump worked for the Los Angeles Police Department's media relations section in 2008 and 2009. While there, he said his supervisor, Lt. John Romero, made remarks about his sexuality, including that Crump was "the new Ruby minus the heels," a reference to a woman he succeeded in the unit.

Crump said that after he complained about the remarks through formal channels, his concerns were deemed to be unfounded. He ultimately was transferred to the city's Skid Row area, a move he said was punitive and cost him future opportunities for promotion.

"It was a serious dilemma for me to sue the agency that I admire and respect," Crump told the Los Angeles Times. "But my commanding officer made poor decisions that, unchallenged, would have had a serious effect on me and other employees who are retaliated against."

City Attorney spokesman John Franklin said the office is reviewing legal options.

The LAPD has come under recent criticism from the inspector general of the department's civilian oversight agency. A report found serious shortcomings in the way the department probes officers' retaliation charges.

The department has promised to increase training for supervisors accused of misconduct.

Last month, another jury awarded $2 million to two officers who said there was a "quota system" for writing traffic tickets.

Edward Villella grew up with a passion for ballet in World War II-era Queens, N.Y., so if there’s a barb or taunt, he’s most likely heard it.

Soft. Effeminate. Weak.

And those are just the ones suitable for genteel conversation.

“There’s a certain stigma, a latent homophobia when it comes to ballet, and it’s a very unfortunate thing,” said Villella, artistic director and co-founder of Miami City Ballet. “I had to stop [dancing] for four years, because my father [Joseph] was embarrassed his son was wearing tights.”

But count Matt Baiamonte, the chiseled part-owner of the famed Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach, among those who know the two athletic sides of Villella as

he closes in on his 75th birthday.

He’s a dancing boxer.

Villella, 145 pounds if you’re generous, is a former amateur boxing champion. But he’s best known as the famed principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, and was largely considered the premier American male performer of his era — if not ever.

Still, Villella has also spent a considerable part of his life in South Florida, training decades back alongside some of prizefighting’s greats at Fifth Street Gym.

This week, he returned to the boxing landmark, strapping on gloves for the first time since his days at New York Maritime College.

Apparently, the left hook still works. Just ask Baiamonte.

The trainer was working Villella through a jab-cross drill when his septuagenarian student stunned him with a left uppercut to the temple.

“You’ve still got it,” Baiamonte said with a laugh, after his head cleared. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

Notice to those with preconceived notions about ballet: Underestimate dancers at your own risk.

Long before it was trendy for pro athletes to dabble in training regimens outside their comfort zone, Villella was the ultimate cross-trainer.

A child dancing prodigy forced by his parents to put his ballet aspirations on hold while pursuing a marine transportation bachelor’s degree, Villella needed a physical outlet.

So Villella took up boxing, an interest of his since watching Friday night fights with his father as a boy. He quickly discovered that the dexterity, body control and strength that set him apart in dancing also made him a more than passable fighter. He won a championship as a junior welterweight, and once knocked an opponent out of the ring for having the temerity to bloody his new sneakers.

Yet when asked what was more taxing on the body, ballet or boxing, he responded with dancing — “No question.”

“It takes eight to 10 years to train [for ballet],” a sweaty Villella said after his sparring session. “You use your entire body. You seek perfection. It’s the feet, the legs, the upper body. So, if you’re going to move, you have to move the entire body.”

And he did so for more than two decades, entertaining a national audience that included four U.S. presidents.

Villella performed at John F. Kennedy’s inaugural, and a decade later, was the subject of a 4,000-word profile in Sports Illustrated in which he tried to dispel longstanding myths about the fortitude of male dancers.

As a boy, Villella, who is married to former Olympic figure skater Linda Carbonetto, wore his baseball uniform over his tights so his friends wouldn’t know he was off to ballet practice. More than 60 years later, Villella believes similar prejudices have dissuaded generations of young men from pursuing the craft.

“It’s unfortunate; it’s awful,” Villella said. “We can’t cultivate a major portion of our art form, which is the males, [because of it]. We need someone to put those ladies down, present them, look after the women on the stage.

“I was a physical person all my life.”

And still is.

Despite hip replacement surgery, nagging arthritis and back problems, he continues to teach a 90-minute class every day at Miami City Ballet.

Much of his life these days is spent preparing for the company’s first-ever trip to Paris in July, appearing at the Theatre du Chatelet July 6 through 23.

“He doesn’t talk about it, but you can tell he was a boxer and a dancer, because when’s teaching us, he’s always moving, always light on his feet,” said Suzanne Limbrunner, a Miami City Ballet dancer. “He’s super-active.”

Still, his fighting days are long done, aside from last week’s eventful visit to South Beach. Even when he trained there decades back, he kept mostly to himself — and out of the ring.

But his love affair with the sport has never faded. At the same time his dancing career was at its zenith, boxing was experiencing a similar boom. He attended the celebrated bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1971, known as the Fight of the Century, and later mused to reporters that Ali had lost in part because he was not fully aware of his body.

Now, four decades later, boxing and ballet are connected again, but this time for less celebrated reasons. Both have seen interest wane in recent years.

“These things sometimes are cyclical,” he said. “In ballet, it would take a brilliant choreographer, or a number of brilliant dancers who are guest artists all over the world, which would raise the visibility of the art form.

PRINCETON, NJ -- For the first time in Gallup's tracking of the issue, a majority of Americans (53%) believe same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. The increase since last year came exclusively among political independents and Democrats. Republicans' views did not change.

Frank Romano, a Key West stalwart who was a founder of Fantasy Fest and who founded the company Key West Aloe, died at 7:30 Thursday morning at age 88.

"He was just a very generous, generous man," said Virginia Panico, executive vice president of the Key West Chamber of Commerce and a Romano friend dating back to the 1970s.

In addition to his work with Fantasy Fest and Key West Aloe (founded in the 1970s as the Key West Fragrance and Cosmetics Factory), Romano was a mainstay with the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys and AIDS Help (a seven-year board member and past secretary).

He helped established the Tourist Development Council when it was a Key West-specific board, and served with the Florida Keys Land and Sea Trust and was active in the Nature Conservancy.

Panico said he also gave generously to the children's burn unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, not out of personal tragedy but just because. He had also been one of the biggest supporters of the Key West Chamber of Commerce, earning its Hall of Fame Award for 20 years of chamber support.

He also was a past recipient of the Florence Spottswood Humanitarian of the Year Award, given annually by the American Red Cross of Miami and the Keys.

But Fantasy Fest, the 10-day party in October that culminates in a Duval Street parade that draws upward or 70,000 people each year, is perhaps his biggest legacy. He and his life partner Joe Liszka, along with Fast Bucky Freddie's owner Tony Falcone and Bill Conkle, were driving forces behind it. Here's how it came to be, he wrote on the festival's Web site:

"In 1978, on Halloween Day, Joe Liszka asked me to accompany him to the intersection of Front and Duval Streets. He asked me to look up Duval Street and tell him what I saw. What was I supposed to see? No cars moving, no people walking, lots of storefronts boarded up because the retailers take their vacation in this slow season.

" 'How is the weather,' he asked. 'Well, it is a typical beautiful day in Paradise, warm with bright sunshine.' 'That's what's wrong,' he told me. 'Here it is the most beautiful weather day of the season and the town is deserted. Workers are laid off. Business owners have a tough time paying their expenses. It is a disaster season for the Key West economy.'

" 'I understand,' I replied, 'but what can we do about it?' 'We need a fest, a carnival, a celebration, something that will entice people to change our moribund season to one of great fun; a party that will bring many people to understand that this season is one of our best,' he replied.

"Liszka's creative inspiration was the birth of Fantasy Fest. Now, Halloween is the busiest day of the year with thousands of people visiting our town. Fantasy Fest week produces the most revenue of any week in the year. A moribund season has become our best."

Born Jeffrey Jones 1944, the artist celebrated a long career whose highlights included a 1970s run doing cover paintings for major fantasy novels like Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" and a number of comics including "Idyl" for "National Lampoons" and "I'm Age" for "Heavy Metal."

Some of my early memories come from about the age of 4 or 5. By then I knew I wanted to be a girl. Maybe I was born with a kind of gender inversion-- some call it a birth defect. I know nothing of these things. I do know that my identification has always been with females-- in books, movies, art and life. My best friends have always been female and I have always been exclusively physically attracted to females.

Jones began her transition in 1998 at age 54:

In August of that year I decided to stop the denial and start living as a woman. In October I finally obtained the name of and saw the leading expert on the subject-- the New York endocrinologist who wrote and rewrote the book. After extensive tests, both mental and physical, I started hormonal gender re-assignment therapy.

The Broward County School District plans to investigate an incident earlier this month in which a high school principal reportedly threatened a lesbian couple with suspension for holding hands on campus and then outed one of the girls to her parents.

The girl hadn't told her parents that she was gay.

Superintendent Jim Notter said Tuesday that his staff was looking into the incident at Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach. He said district staff don't have the full story yet and he didn't want to act on "hearsay."

The incident, which was reported in the media this week, sparked outrage at Tuesday's school board meeting.

Michael Emanuel Rajner, who sits on the district's diversity committee, told board members he found the principal's actions "reprehensible" and "horrendous." He said gay, lesbian and transgender students are at a greater risk of being bullied and committing suicide.

Students should never be outed as gay, he said.

"It's inexcusable," he said.

Jeanne Jusevic, chairwoman of Broward's District Advisory Council, became teary when telling board members that the district needed to start "exercising a bit of common sense" in its policies.

She said there are many reasons for teenagers — gay or straight — to hug, touch or hold hands.

She said every school should have a gay-straight alliance club on campus.

Notter said it's up to each school to determine how it wants to handle public displays of affection between students. But the school board voted unanimously in March to add gender identity and gender expression to its non-discrimination policy, along with age, race and religion.

"We led the state of Florida in an anti-bullying policy, so clearly it's an important issue for us," he said.

Election Day is Next Tuesday | May 24th, 2011Do You Know Where the Candidates Stand?

The next Miami-Dade Mayor and Commission have some work to do for the LGBT community. The most pressing issue will be to strengthen Miami-Dade's Human Rights Ordinance (HRO) to include protections for both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Our 2011 Special Election Voter guide spotlights this critical issue so you can see where the candidates stand.

The Miami-Dade HRO has for more than a decade included protections based on sexual orientation, but we have fallen behind many other communities across Florida and the country that also ban discrimination based on Gender Identity and Expression. Tampa, Gainesville, Tallahassee & Leon County, Orlando & Orange County, Palm Beach, Broward, and Monroe Counties have these protections. Salt Lake City Utah and Columbia South Carolina have these protections. We need a mayor ready to help bring these protections to Miami-Dade County.

This year's luncheon, at Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, was hosted for the fourth time by CBS4 meteorologist David Bernard. The even was co-chaired by Sandra Booth and Chuck Williams, former board president of Stonewall Library. Jazz artist Nicole Henry entertained, along with The 9Muses Ensemble. Honorary hosts: Rosanne Minnet and Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo.

Honorees: Arnie Marks of PROSPER (Peers Reaching Out: Support Partners for Emotional Recovery); Richard J. Philipp of SNAP, The Special Needs Advisory Partners; another legend, South Florida DJ Rick Shaw who founded the Majic Children's Fund; and Lorraine Wilby, an advocate for the homeless.

SAVE Dade, the county’s largest gay-rights group, struggles with the perception that all its members are liberal Democrats.

This year's honoree at the group’s Champions of Equality reception on Friday will be Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, who was recently elected the new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. But last year the group honored Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami.

“Just like most stereotypes, they’re usually wrong and based on prejudices and untruths. This is one of them, that people believe SAVE Dade is a Democratic organization,” said Ros-Lehtinen, a GOP stalwart and longtime leading Congressional gay-rights ally.

Ros-Lehtinen offered to host a gathering for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of Log Cabin Republicans at the reception. She praised SAVE Dade for promoting “gender equality” and is pleased the organization “is getting more conservatives involved in this outreach effort.”

“The goal of equality is an important one and has no party labels,” said Ros-Lehtinen, who has a transgender son. “I congratulate them for going the extra mile to promote their organization — and their message — to a community that may be prejudiced against them. We’ve got to reach out. The message is important. There’s strength in numbers.”

While Kenneth Mehlman chaired the GOP in the mid-2000s, the Republican Party platform officially opposed gay marriage and the Bush administration strongly supported anti-gay marriage amendments throughout the United States.

Last year, Mehlman came out as a gay man. He, Mary Cheney (former Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter), and other high-level GOP activists then held a $10,000-a-couple reception in New York City to raise money for the legal team that successfully argued a federal court overturn of California’s Proposition 8. Conservatives have appealed that decision.

Gay and lesbian Democrats should go easier on their Republican brothers and sisters, Ros-Lehtinen said. “They want to punish all the Republicans for statements by a few.”

“We’re trying to use language that resonates with Republicans,” he said. “It’s talking in a way that reflects the values of their own party’s principals. Keeping the government out of private lives. That’s a big core foundational belief for the Republican Party.”

Ortuño says the Democratic Party has long “embraced the LGBT movement.”

“We were speaking the same words as the Democratic Party. We were speaking the same language,” Ortuño said. ”We just need to do more work with the Republican Party.”

Ortuño acknowledged that many gay organizations are run by Democrats, “but if you talk to any of the leaders, they’ll tell you the importance of our issue being nonpartisan.”

“The reality is we’re talking in very large strokes when we say the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” he said. “The reality is that there are Republicans who support our issues and there are Democrats who don’t. The president is a good example of that. He doesn’t support us on marriage equality.”

Mark Trowbridge, president and CEO of the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce, is a SAVE Dade board member. He came out as a gay man after leaving a job in the late ‘90s as University of Miami student activities director.

“One of my bosses at the time, who was gay, said if you want to do well here, get promoted, you have to keep your sexuality private. He was speaking from his own experience. I got the message loud and clear,” Trowbridge said. “I tell people my life began after I left there. I made a solid commitment that wherever I worked again, I promised or committed to myself that I would be comfortable to share who I am.”

With a sense of irony, he adds that more people know his sexual orientation than his party affiliation.

“First they roll their eyes and then they say what exactly does that mean? I tell them the story I share with you: I’ve been a Republican since I was a kid because I handed out fliers for Ronald Reagan. My parents (both Democratic union activists in Ohio) felt I would grow out of it.”

He ignores the jokes. “If you took the bait, you’d have to be defensive.”

Trowbridge said gay leaders everywhere must look beyond party politics. “When you vote for a candidate and they disappoint you, you don’t care what party they are.”